What has long defined Nadal is his optimism: his ability to play the point at hand without being weighed down by the baggage from the last. But Novak Djokovic has been simply too much for even Nadal to bear this season.

Djokovic has been better than Nadal on three surfaces and in four countries now, and there were rub-the-eyes moments in this Wimbledon final Sunday when it seemed Djokovic was toying with him, too. Although Nadal, a Spaniard who is a born competitor, managed to wrestle the third set his way, he could not find the form or the solutions — to borrow one of his favorite English words — to keep Djokovic from fulfilling his boyhood quest and winning the men’s Wimbledon final, 6-4, 6-1, 1-6, 6-3.

“The most special day of my life,” Djokovic said. “This is my favorite tournament, the tournament I always dreamed of winning, the first tournament I ever watched in my life. I think I’m still sleeping.”

In fact, Djokovic, a 24-year-old Serb, has perhaps never looked more wide awake than he did as he clenched his fists — no, his entire body — and roared with wide eyes and release in the direction of his supersize entourage in the players box.

The scenes of celebration were as memorable as the achievement as Djokovic’s coach, Marian Vajda, and trainers locked arms and jumped in unison; as Djokovic’s parents and two younger brothers raised their arms and then embraced; as Djokovic tossed racket after racket into the stands and kissed the grass, then decided to take it a big step further by actually eating a piece of the Centre Court turf.

“I felt like an animal; I wanted to see how it tastes,” Djokovic said. “It tastes good.”

It was enough to make Pat Cash’s protocol-breaking climb into the players box in 1987 seem positively understated, but then who could blame Djokovic or his clan?

“When I won in 2008 the first time, the emotions were very high,” Nadal said in his postmatch remarks. “I can imagine how Novak feels today. It’s a special day.”

Make that a special week. On Friday, by defeating Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the semifinals in a match that was more consistently entertaining than the final, Djokovic assured himself of the No. 1 ranking for the first time.

Sunday’s victory was the cream on the strawberries, but it was also something much more substantial because it left no room for argument. If Nadal had successfully defended his title, he would have dropped to No. 2 despite holding three of the four Grand Slam singles titles. With Djokovic winning and often dominating Sunday, he is the player who has won two of three major tournaments this year, beginning with the Australian Open in January.

Djokovic is an astonishing 48-1 in 2011, his only loss coming against Roger Federer in the semifinals of the French Open that Nadal eventually won. But Djokovic’s loss in Paris was the big exception to the new rules. Djokovic has beaten Federer and Nadal — the two players who have defined this era — eight times in nine matches this year, and he has been stingiest of all with Nadal: beating him five consecutive times, including twice on American hardcourts, twice on his beloved red clay and now on grass.

“When one player beats you five times is because today my game don’t bother him a lot,” Nadal said in English. “Today, probably against me, he’s playing better than my level. Find solutions, that’s what I have to try and that’s what I’m going to try.”

Sunday’s victory was also Djokovic’s first over Nadal in a best-of-five-set or Grand Slam match after six previous defeats.

“For four years, it was Roger, Rafa, Rafa, Roger,” said Djokovic’s mother, Dijana. “Now it is Novak, Novak, Novak, Novak.”

Djokovic has perhaps never been better than in the second set Sunday. He took flight after cracking open a tight, serve-dominated first set by winning the only break point of the set. With the early lead, he began hitting high note after high note.

The set required just 33 minutes, and though the Wimbledon statisticians are famously generous, it was actually possible to believe them when they credited Djokovic with 13 winners and just 2 unforced errors.

“He was too good in that set, nothing more to say,” Nadal said.

There were ample opportunities for conversation the rest of the way, particularly after Nadal took advantage of Djokovic’s palpable drop in form and energy in the third set. The relentless, in-the-moment Nadal of old would have presumably pushed Djokovic to the limit from there, but Nadal could not summon the accuracy or the ability in the fourth set.

He made unforced errors with his forehand with time and space available, and struggled to control his backhand drive, relying too often on the one-handed slice. He allowed Djokovic to serve for the title he has been dreaming of since he was a 7-year-old watching satellite television in his parents’ restaurant in the Serbian mountain resort of Kopaonik.

Djokovic’s parents were skiers, not tennis players. He might have been a competitive skier, too, if the gifted tennis coach Jelena Gencic, the former mentor of Monica Seles, had not happened to give a summer clinic on some hardcourts just across the parking lot. She was the one who first saw his talent, first told his parents they had a “golden child” and predicted that he would be a champion.

Djokovic remembers practicing for the Wimbledon ceremony to come, holding up a small trophy and saying: “Hi, I’m Novak Djokovic. I won Wimbledon.”

Now, nearly two decades later, he was one game away, and he did not wait for it, even if he made Nadal wait for him by — as usual — bouncing, bouncing, bouncing the ball. At 30-30, he served and volleyed for the first time in the set, surprising Nadal and knocking away a backhand volley winner. He came forward again on the final point, and as Nadal’s backhand sailed long, he dropped to the grass and was soon holding and kissing the real thing.

“Getting a trophy at Wimbledon,” his mother said, “that’s why he started to play tennis.”

Obtain by: Christopher Clarey

Federer, a six-time champion at the All England Club, remains one title behind his American friend Sampras, and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the powerful Frenchman, made certain it stayed that way by doing what no man has ever done against Federer in a Grand Slam tournament.

Until Wednesday’s quarterfinals, Federer was an astonishing 178-0 when he won the first two sets of a Grand Slam singles match. But Tsonga — with his potent serve, percussive forehand and footspeed — put an end to that streak: rallying to win, 3-6, 6-7 (3), 6-4, 6-4, 6-4, on Centre Court.

“I think my game was plenty good enough this year to win the tournament, but unfortunately there’s only one who can win it, and the rest go home empty-handed,” Federer said. “That’s what happened to me today, but Jo played an amazing match.”

For his efforts, Tsonga, a 26-year-old Frenchman seeded 12th here, will get to play Novak Djokovic in the semifinals on Friday.

Djokovic had surprising difficulty on Wednesday against the 18-year-old Australian qualifier Bernard Tomic. He shouted after errors and was left sprawling on the grass at one stage after Tomic surprised him — not for the only time — with a quick change of direction.

But Djokovic got up, sportingly applauded the winner and kept grinding away from the baseline and was eventually rewarded with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 victory.

“He was not making a lot of unforced errors from the baseline, and that made my life very difficult,” Djokovic told the BBC. “I tried to change the pace, but he was better at that. We were playing cat and mouse.”

Djokovic, the second seed, has never been past the semifinals at Wimbledon and has not yet shown the sparkling form that helped him win 41 straight matches to start the season before Federer stopped his run in the semifinals of this year’s French Open. But there will be no rematch with Federer at the All England Club. Instead, Djokovic ‘s semifinal will be a reprise of the 2008 Australian Open final in which Djokovic defeated Tsonga to win his first Grand Slam title.

That was Tsonga’s breakthrough, and it had many in the game believing that he would soon make a deeper impact on the sport. Injuries and inconsistency have kept him from getting past the quarterfinals in another major tournament until now, but grass is a natural surface for him with his attacking game and ability to improvise. He has also been re-energized this summer by the decision to split with his long-time coach Eric Winogradsky and to take greater responsibility for his own career.

“On the important points, he played at his best,” said the third-seeded Federer, who had beaten Tsonga in four of their five previous matches. “He took risks and chances, and it all worked for him. It’s hard to accept, because I feel I was as good as he was in terms of how I was playing. But he closed really well and served really well for a long time. I knew he could do it, but it was still impressive to see when you’re across the net.”

Obtained by: Christopher Clarey

And so it was that the Mavericks wound up losing four straight, three games by a total of 6 points, with Nowitzki missing a game-tying free throw with 3.4 seconds in one, punting the ball into the stands after another and later being called out by Wade as a poor leader and finisher and something of a whiner.

Forget for the moment that Wade would not have bared such feelings about another team’s star if that player had not been viewed as somehow less authentic, a European wannabe. The criticism wasn’t without merit. It took five long years for Nowitzki to return to the stage of his failures, to prove that he had heard the criticism and taken it to heart.

In leading the Mavericks to their first title in Miami on Sunday night, claiming the finals’ most valuable player trophy after the 105-95 closeout in Game 6, Nowitzki was a more versatile player, a more confident closer and a much better leader.

“You can’t really take that away, you can’t say he wasn’t,” Chris Bosh said late Sunday night. “There’s nothing extra, there’s nothing super. He was just himself. He’s a consistent basketball player, a great shooter and a great leader of that team. And in these situations, I think when you’re yourself and you play your basketball, the best things always happen.”

If this was a double entendre, a message to James — who in the finals was no fourth-quarter closer or pro basketball’s King — we’ll never know. But we can imagine it was, even if it were unconscious.

The truth hurts when it is spelled out in the composite box score of a championship series. Wade has his ring, but James is exactly where Nowitzki was five years ago, entering midcareer and needing to look hard in the mirror — and less at a sneering news media — to acknowledge his stunning personal shortcomings in the finals.

“Obviously Dirk, five years ago, it burned in him,” Wade said. “He learned from that experience.”

Now it is James’s turn to grow, to spend less time on his brand and more in the gym. He is a special talent, a force of nature with great court vision, but there are aspects of his game that are sorely lacking.

A player of his size and strength should have a better post game, at least one go-to move. He might want to study the midrange pull-up jumper, so artfully demonstrated by Jason Terry. James’s ball handling under pressure could use some work.

Critics will revel in the assertion that James choked in the fourth quarters of this compelling series, whatever that means. It is more likely that he pressed when he realized his standard weapons of deployment and what worked in earlier rounds — the 3-point jumpers, the slashing drives into the paint — were misfiring or taken away.

If James was confounded, seemingly dribbling in the dark, that’s what happens when a fuse blows in the middle of a storm and there are no candles to light up your life.

If they are honest with themselves, James and Wade will admit that they didn’t take Nowitzki and the Mavericks seriously enough until it was too late. They celebrated prematurely in front of the Dallas bench with a 15-point lead in the fourth quarter in Game 2 and their comeuppance was a series-altering rally that mimicked what Miami did to Dallas in 2006.

Their coughing skit, making fun on camera of Nowitzki before Game 5, was juvenile at best.

Go back to last July when they preened for their fans and James predicted a trove of titles. Eleven months later, he — and Wade, for that matter — should have a better understanding of what it takes to win just one.

Yes, James’s hero, Michael Jordan, claimed six championships, but none until he had Scottie Pippen and a special and vastly underrated unit behind him. The Heat has time. It has Pat Riley to recruit better role players. Maybe Riley should call up Jordan, the Charlotte owner, who handed Dallas an essential interior defender in Tyson Chandler this season.

For those scoring at home, that’s two titles Jordan the administrator has figured in after sending Rip Hamilton to Detroit when he was general manager in Washington.

Of course, James has the power and skill to alter the course of a distasteful conversation, this public pile on. Perceptions do change. Jason Kidd was once a gifted malcontent who essentially quit on the Nets to get himself traded to Dallas. Now he is, at 38, the grand old man of the N.B.A.

But James didn’t help himself late Sunday night when he said, “All the people that was rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today.”

And James began his eighth N.B.A. summer vacation Monday without what he covets most in his basketball life: championship legitimacy.

Basketball’s great champions — Jordan and Magic and now Nowitzki — get better with age. Now it is up to James to grow from this experience, confront the issues, or continue to cough in the clutch.

Posted by: Harvey Araton

Challenges mounted Monday in the wake of the Miami Heat’s 88-86 victory Sunday, a game that ended on Dirk Nowitzki’s missed 16-footer and exposed more questions facing the Mavericks, notably finding fourth-quarter help for Nowitzki and figuring out how to hold a lead.

Dallas also must deal with LeBron James as a facilitator, a supporting role to Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh that he has cast for himself. James was credited with the assist on the winning basket, a crisp backhanded pass to Bosh, whose 16-foot jumper put the Heat ahead to stay.

“We won,” said James, who finished with 17 points and 9 assists. “That’s all I care about. I’ve got a lot of points in my career. I have had some teammates who have given me great confidence and ability to go out there and score. But I’ve done other things. I don’t have to score points to be effective.”

James has kept busy defensively, too, taking over for Wade to guard the sixth man Jason Terry in the fourth quarter, effectively choking off the Mavericks’ second-leading scorer. Led by James and Wade, the Heat attacked the basket more in Game 3 and outscored the Mavericks inside, 40-22.

“It’s what they’re assembled to do,” said Terry, who scored 15 points but was 0 of 4 shooting against James in the fourth quarter. “People doubted them. But they’re here.”

He added: “There’s no tricks. No magic show going on. These guys are who they are. They’re spectacular. Our job is to stop that and impose our will on them over 48 minutes.”

The Mavericks’ first step would be maintaining a lead. They were ahead for 5 minutes 49 seconds Sunday night, and four of those minutes came in the first quarter, when they briefly led by 5 points.

“Every time we gained some traction, they would hit us with a 6-0 run or an 8-0 run or they would chip away at our 5-point lead,” Mavericks Coach Rick Carlisle said. “They did a better job of cashing in on opportunities than we did.”

Indeed, Miami has led approximately 66 percent of the series, according to Elias Sports Bureau statistics. The Mavericks have been ahead 25 percent of the time, with ties counting for the remaining 9 percent.

Dallas was in front for 15 ½ minutes in Game 1. That dropped to 14 ½ minutes in Game 2 before plummeting in Game 3. The Mavericks have yet to hold a double-digit lead, going up by 8 points in Game 1, 9 in Game 2 and 5 in Game 3.

Nowitzki, who kept the Mavericks close in the second half with 24 of his 34 points, complimented James on his defense, then said of Terry, “Jet hasn’t really been a crunch-time, clutch player for us the way we need him to.”

Nowitzki then added: “We have to find a way to get Jet some freedom and get him off some movement. He’s got to make some shots for us. He’s a big reason why we’re here.”

Nowitzki received little support from his fellow starters Shawn Marion (10 points), Jason Kidd (9), Tyson Chandler (5) and DeShawn Stevenson (3), whose combined 27 points were just 2 more than the Mavericks’ bench.

“We didn’t really give him much help, and I take a lot of that on my shoulders,” Terry said.

Kidd had 10 assists and 6 rebounds, but he was also forced into four turnovers by a swarming Heat defense that has caused fits for everyone but Nowitzki.

Asked if the Mavericks had hit critical mass and the Heat was simply the better team heading into Games 4 and 5 here Tuesday and Thursday, Kidd offered a simple answer.

“It’s about runs,” he said. “When you’ve played it enough, you don’t panic. You understand that you just want to be on the other side of that run late in the game, and hopefully it’s big enough to get you a win.”

Published by: Tom Spousta

Powering the ball into the deepest corners and countering Murray’s controlled pace, Nadal broke his opponent’s serve six times en route to the victory, his 11th in 15 matches against the scrambling Scotsman and his fourth on clay.

Murray, seeded fourth, managed to break Nadal’s serve only three times. He hit 35 winners, one less than Nadal.

The semifinal victory by Nadal, seeded first, gives Nadal an opportunity to match Bjorn Borg’s record six championship titles between 1974 and 1981.

After 3 hours 14 minutes on court, Nadal steps to the line to serve for the set. He doesn’t waste time, as befits a winner who wants to finish off his opponent. His first winning point is an overhead smash into a corner. His next is a slashing backhand passing shot that accelerates past Murray at net. His third point is a baseline-corner-to-baseline-corner shot that splits the court. Murray smacks a backhand into the net. Nadal jumps, walks to net, nods to Murray, then turns and lifts his arms to the sky. Patience, power, persistence paid off.

On Sunday, Nadal will face the winner of the match between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.

If John Isner of Tampa, Fla., is watching, there must be the flicker of a smile crossing his face about now. The American, who played college tennis at the University of Georgia, is the only opponent in this French Open to have won a set off Nadal. He won two, in the first round, and the match seemed to suggest that Nadal was vulnerable. False logic there. Isner was formidable and Nadal, a stalwart competitor, won a tough match. Now, Nadal’s putting the experience to good use today against Murray, whose serve isn’t quite as fast as Isner’s, but whose skill set is formidable, too. Just not enough, it seems, to derail a speeding express train. Patience of the kind Nadal needed against Isner is paying off. Murray hits a forehand into the net and trails, 5-3.

There’s an old saying in tennis, don’t run that far and not win the point. In the fifth game of the set, Nadal had a chance to change calamity into conquest. Murray hit a wicked cross-court drop shot, feathering the ball across the net at an almost impossible angle. Nadal raced forward to retrieve, blocked a return up the line, which Murray immediately popped into a lob. Nadal turned his back to the net and then looked over his shoulder for the ball. When he saw it, he slapped it with a backhand volley. It was a bit weak. Murray saw it coming back and hit the ball in Nadal’s direction, which was okay, because the swift-footed Spaniard misjudged the shot and sent it into the net.

For Nadal, it had been a long run for a lean result. Nadal won redemption later in the game, staving off three break points and racing to the net on a weak Murray lob. His running overhead smash would have made Pete Sampras proud.

Obtained by: John Martin

Derrick Rose elevated for a series-saving shot at the arc. James leaped with him, then swatted the ball and the Chicago Bulls into oblivion. The buzzer sounded on an 83-80 Miami victory, and James and his teammates began a subdued celebration, having claimed the Eastern Conference crown in five games.

“There’s no sense of relief right now,” James said. “We still got work to do.”

The Heat will battle the Dallas Mavericks in the finals, in a rematch of the 2006 series, which Miami won. The series begins Tuesday in Miami.

For a team that for months seemed incapable of closing games, the Heat now stands as a collection of experts. James punished the Bulls in one fourth quarter after another for the final four games of the series, all of them Heat victories. In the finale, James and Dwyane Wade alternated big shots and suffocating stops as they crushed the Bulls’ spirit and ruthlessly erased a 12-point deficit in the final 3 minutes 2 seconds.

For the fourth straight game, the young Bulls were incapable of matching the Heat’s steadiness down the stretch, or its awesome star power.

Rose missed 7 of 9 shots in the final quarter and had two turnovers before having his last-gasp shot blocked at the buzzer by James. Symbolically at least, it was a repeat of Game 4, when James forced Rose into a misfire on a potential game-winner in regulation.

“It’s on me,” Rose, the Chicago native who revived the Bulls and led them to a league-best 62-win season, said glumly. “Everything. It’s on me. Turnovers, missed shots, fouls. If anything, learn from it. That’s all I can do right now. The series is over with.”

Wade and James combined for 17 points in a 19-4 run to finish the game and scored 22 of the Heat’s 26 points in the final period. Chris Bosh scored the other 4.

Play for reverberating play, this was the vision the Heat had last summer, when the franchise lured James and Bosh to South Beach to join Wade.

“There’s a history in this game of great players shining in those moments, when the game is in the balance,” Coach Erik Spoelstra said. “And all three of those guys are special players. That’s why we recruited them so hard this summer.”

When it was over, the Heat players smiled and hugged — each other, then the Bulls — but dispensed with any of their signature bravado.

James is heading to his second finals, his first since 2007, in search of his first championship. Wade is returning for the first time since 2006, when he and Shaquille O’Neal led Miami to its only championship.

James finished with 28 points and 11 rebounds. Wade had 9 turnovers in the first three quarters but finished with a flourish, scoring 10 of his 21 points in the fourth. Bosh added 20 as the Heat’s superstar core again carried the night.

Rose had 25 points, but struggled with his shot (9 for 29) and had little help — themes that defined the Bulls throughout the series. Luol Deng scored 18 points in the finale, and Ronnie Brewer had 10. But Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah, the starting frontcourt, combined for just 10 points and 14 rebounds. Kurt Thomas, making his first appearance of the series, made a series of big plays down the stretch and for a time kept the Bulls’ hopes alive.

Chicago had a 12-point lead with 3:53 to play, and 23,057 jumping fans sensed a victory. Three minutes later, they were reduced to nervous murmuring.

Wade drove for consecutive layups. James hit a 3-pointer. Rose fouled Wade on a 3-pointer, leading to a 4-point play. James followed with another 3, and suddenly the game was tied at 79-79 with 1:01 left.

The Heat took the lead — its first since the first quarter — on a James 20-footer, after James stole a pass from Rose.

“We made mistakes, and they fed off them,” Deng said, adding, “That level of play in the fourth quarter is what we have to learn to play all the time. We’re capable of playing with this team.”

Obtained by: HOWARD BECK

“You are not the man!” Suzuki wailed, until finally giving in, to raucous laughter all around.

It was only a year ago, in the same Camden Yards clubhouse, that the Mariners called a team meeting to support Griffey after a report that he had been sleeping by his locker during a game. Griffey soon retired — he is now a team consultant — and Seattle lurched to 101 losses.

The Mariners are still in last place, and their offense is feeble. But optimism reigns, largely because of Michael Pineda, the hulking 22-year-old strike-thrower who faced the Orioles on Tuesday.

The Mariners believe they could contend soon with Pineda and Felix Hernandez, last season’s American League Cy Young Award winner, anchoring their rotation. The presence of Pineda as a second potential ace is especially enticing because Hernandez is signed through 2014, making Seattle unlikely to trade him.

“You start putting the pieces together, and you look at the two pitchers at the top of the rotation,” General Manager Jack Zduriencik said. “We’re going to have a lot of money coming off the books this year. It’s going to be a very, very interesting ride for us as we move forward. With my background in scouting, I know it’s going to take time. But I’m excited, and it could happen quickly.”

With rookie hitters making little impact this season, Pineda has been a revelation on the mound. He is 4-2 with a 2.84 earned run average in seven starts, with more strikeouts than innings. Dig a little deeper and you see what really sets him apart.

According to FanGraphs, Pineda is the hardest-throwing starting pitcher in the majors, with a fastball that averages 96 miles an hour. He has also thrown a first-pitch strike to 73.7 percent of his hitters, the best figure in the game. He fired a first-pitch strike to his first 12 hitters on Tuesday, and 21 of 26 over all.

“He’s a very gifted young man,” said the Orioles’ Luke Scott, who struck out in his first two at-bats. “Live fastball. He threw some good sliders to me, backdoor, an inch off the plate away — you can’t do anything with that pitch. He’s got a great arm, he hid the ball well. When you’ve got that kind of stuff and you’re pounding the zone, you get guys in swing mode.”

That was Scott’s approach with two outs and one on in the sixth inning. Pineda had allowed just one run, but Scott singled on a first-pitch fastball, and two more hits brought in two runs. Pineda finished the inning, striking out six with one walk in a no-decision. The scoreboard clocked three of his 100 pitches at 98 miles an hour.

Pineda’s willingness to challenge hitters suggests supreme confidence in his stuff — not surprising, considering how hard he throws. He is 6 feet 7 inches and 260 pounds, but his mind-set mirrors that of a smaller pitcher, Pedro Martinez, whom he idolized growing up in the Dominican Republic.

“Pedro is a little guy, but on the mound, he’s a big guy,” Pineda said. “He’s never scared of the hitter. He throws the ball, focused. I like this a lot. He’s never scared — never.”

In the Mariners’ clubhouse, Hernandez, at 25, is more peer than icon, and a different style of pitcher. Hernandez, who is from Venezuela, has a more refined changeup and more sink on his fastball, producing more ground balls. Pineda works up in the zone; only Colby Lewis of Texas generates a higher percentage of fly balls among A.L. pitchers.

Still, Pineda regularly consults Hernandez for advice, mostly on hitters, and Hernandez is happy to help. With his long-term commitment to the Mariners, he is eager to nurture Pineda’s development.

“You don’t have to say a lot of things to that guy; he’s got a pretty good arm,” Hernandez said. “I’ve got six years here, I know the guys in the league, I know what I have to do. He’s learning, but he’s going to be one of the best.”

Obtained by: TYLER KEPNER

Before the playoffs began last month, Miami Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra brought out the real 2006 trophy to stir his team’s emotions. Two weeks ago, Pat Riley, the team president and collector of championship rings, offered a different brand of inspiration, telling Spoelstra stories about Jerry West’s legendary struggles against the Boston Celtics, the Heat’s next foe.

Spoelstra said he felt the agony as if it were his own. LeBron James had felt that agony personally, too many times. Dwyane Wade, too. It was why they all were here, together: To win a title. To beat the Celtics. To vanquish old ghosts.

Catharsis came at last Wednesday night for all of them, with a 97-87 victory that knocked the Celtics out of the playoffs and catapulted the Heat to the Eastern Conference finals.

The mission that James, Wade and Chris Bosh began last July is nearing its denouement.

They closed out Boston, the defending Eastern Conference champion, with an awesome display of power, finishing with a 16-0 run over the final 4 minutes 28 seconds. When it was over, Wade and James embraced on the court, as thousands of white towels whirled above them. Then James kneeled on the court.

“Everything went through my mind at that point,” James said, “including finally getting over this hump against this team. Everything I went through this summer, with the decision and deciding to come down here and be a part of this team.”

This was a meaningful celebration, nothing like the audacious party they threw for themselves last summer after joining forces. They need eight more victories to win a title. But they have overthrown the team that lorded over them for so long.

The Celtics, James and Wade have said often, provided the blueprint by uniting Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.

“They pushed us,” James said. “They pushed us every game. And every second. Every play. Every minute on the court. If we ever made a mistake, they made us pay for it.”

A year ago, the Celtics knocked the Cleveland Cavaliers out of the playoffs, pushing James to South Beach in search of better help. It seemed only appropriate that James scored the last 10 points of the game, sending the Celtics away with a 4-1 defeat that will force their own re-examination.

Pierce, Allen and Garnett, the Celtics’ Hall of Fame core, are all in their mid-30s. Coach Doc Rivers has flirted with a sabbatical, but on Wednesday said he was “leaning heavily to coming back.”

“I haven’t made that decision, but I can tell you I probably will,” Rivers said, adding: “I’m a Celtic, and I love our guys. I want to win again here.”

Shaquille O’Neal, who barely played in the postseason because of a calf injury, could retire. Limping toward the bus late Wednesday, O’Neal said it was too soon to say. As he walked, a Heat employee — clutching a 2006 championship ring — rushed up to thank O’Neal for delivering that title. It may have been his last.

The Celtics were ousted in five games for the first time since they brought Pierce, Allen and Garnett together in 2007. They won the title the next spring and made the finals again last June. If they return intact, they will be chasing a younger, quicker, sturdier Big 3.

James dominated the finale with 33 points, 23 in the second half. Wade had 34 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals. Bosh added 14 points and was Miami’s only other player in double figures. The Heat is 31-3 when those three combine for at least 75 points.

“They definitely posed a lot of challenges to us,” Allen said, “and they put a lot of pressure on our defense.”

With Boston and the Los Angeles Lakers both eliminated in the past week, both conferences will have new representatives in the finals. And the N.B.A. will have a champion other than the Celtics or Lakers for the first time since 2007.

Miami is heading to the conference finals for the fourth time in its 23-year history, and the first time since 2006. The Heat will be heavily favored in the next round, regardless of the opponent. The Chicago Bulls have a 3-2 lead over the Atlanta Hawks in the other semifinal series, with Game 6 on Thursday.

The Celtics had an 87-81 lead with under five minutes to play. It vanished under a hailstorm of turnovers and 3-pointers. James Jones started the run with a 3-pointer, and Bosh followed with a driving dunk after faking Garnett into the air. James hit a 3-pointer over Pierce for a 93-87 lead, and the white towels began to fly around the arena.

James crushed whatever hopes the Celtics still had, lunging to steal Delonte West’s pass, then racing for a breakaway dunk.

The Celtics’ veteran crew never could match the Heat’s power. Miami took 38 free throws (to Boston’s 20). Allen, Pierce and Garnett combined for just 45 points. Boston’s fourth star, Rajon Rondo, battled back and elbow pain and sat out the fourth quarter, finishing with 6 points and 3 assists.

Over the last seven months, the Heat had stumbled and regained its balance, defied expectations, forged its identity, closed the regular season in style and put away the Philadelphia 76ers in a tougher-than-expected first round.

Closing out the Celtics was a task requiring its own category.

“It took a five-and-a-half-month season to get to this point,” Spoelstra said, “to exorcise this demon for a lot of us.”

Posted by: HOWARD BECK

In the moment, in a single playoff snapshot, James is at long last an entertainer again — a fabulously skilled basketball savant — rather than a symbol of modern moral decline, if he really ever was.

It may be years before the public forgets the self-indulgent spectacle of James’s 2010 free-agent tour or the cold-hearted audacity of “The Decision.” Cleveland may never forgive his betrayal.

But as the playoffs unfold, and the Miami Heat pushes ever closer to the N.B.A. finals, James is building a bold case that his decision (with a lower-case “d”) was the correct one.

Miami has a 2-0 lead over Boston, James’s personal playoff nemesis. When he was a solitary star in Cleveland, the Celtics wrecked his title hopes twice in three years. Now James is doing the wrecking, averaging 28.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists in the series while shooting 50 percent from the field.

Last May, James’s Cavaliers led by 1-0 and 2-1 before losing to the Celtics in six games. In 2008, his team never led the series at all. He is poised for a breakthrough. This is no coincidence.

In Cleveland, James leaned on Wally Szczerbiak and Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Mo Williams and Anderson Varejao. Now he leans on Wade, who is averaging 33 points and 53.7 percent shooting in two games, and Chris Bosh.

In the past, James said, “If I don’t bring my A-plus game, there’s a good chance we probably wouldn’t win that game.” Indeed, James was shaky in Game 1 of this series, missing 11 of 19 shots on Sunday. But Wade was scintillating, making 14 for 21 shots and scoring 38 points.

“And that definitely takes a load off you,” James said Tuesday night, after the Heat’s 102-91 victory. “And that’s the vision that I had during the free-agent period when I decided to come here.”

This was, of course, the point of the exercise last July, though it was lost amid the uproar.

The format and execution of James’s decision will long be the subject of fierce debate. The television program was ill-conceived, the smoke-filled rally crass and premature. But competitively speaking, James made a perfectly logical choice.

James was a superstar in need of superstar assistance. The Cavaliers could not provide it. The Heat did, in a major way.

As he moves closer to a championship, and further from “The Decision,” James is slowly regaining his lofty stature. There is time for the narrative to evolve.

“People were just upset by the way he did it, I think, more than where he went,” said Henry Schafer, the executive vice president of Q Scores Company, which measures the awareness and likability of celebrities and athletes. “And that’s going to take time to heal.”

Perceptions are already shifting, albeit slowly. Last summer, “The Decision” caused James’s positive Q score to plummet to 14, from a peak of 24 in early 2010. By March, he had rebounded to 17.

The score reflects the percentage of Americans who are familiar with James and consider him their favorite sports personality. The average is 15. At his peak, James’s positive scores ranked with Peyton Manning’s among sports stars.

But James’s negative Q score — reflecting the percentage of people who rate him fair or poor — remains high, at 33, well above the average of 24. At the height of his popularity, James’s negative score was 22. It soared to 39 last summer.

“He’s inching his way back,” Schafer said. “I think he still has a long ways to go. Even winning a championship, I don’t think, will be a solution to his resurrection.”

There will always be those who contend — as Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley and others do — that James diminished his stature and even relinquished his manliness.

James’s purported crime was abandoning his alpha-dog status with the Cavaliers to assume a Scottie Pippen role with the Heat. But superstars seldom win championships without superstar help.

Paul Pierce waited 10 years for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to arrive in Boston. Kobe Bryant was a lost soul for more than three years between the time Shaquille O’Neal departed and the day Pau Gasol landed. Barring a Garnett/Gasol-type deal, no one was going to Cleveland.

As partners, James and Wade have indeed seen their stature erode. James received only four first-place votes for most valuable player, after winning the award in 2009 and 2010. Wade appeared on 10 ballots.

In securing a better supporting cast on his own terms, James invited a harsher spotlight. Once he was cheered in nearly every arena. Now the Heat might be the most hated team in the league.

Critics contend that James took the easy way out. But James’s experience — the jeers, the profane taunts, the off-color signs — indicates otherwise.

In a society that is eager to forgive and forget the transgressions of its sports stars — from Pete Rose to Alex Rodriguez, Ron Artest to Ray Lewis — James seems destined to rise again. He is no expert in Q scores, but he seems to sense as much.

As he considered the antipathy, James said confidently, “I think it’s going to die down in the next couple years, of course.”

Obtained by: HOWARD BECK

Nadal has not played an official match on his favorite surface in more than 10 months, and though he still takes the competition seriously enough to prepare with gusto and scrutinize video of his past matches, he stands and slides alone on clay.

His career record on the surface is 203-16: a strike rate that no major player in the Open era can touch, not even Bjorn Borg, the six-time French Open champion from Sweden, who had a career record of 245-39 on clay.

Still just 24 years old, Nadal has crunched the numbers and the opposition with an amalgam of supreme athleticism, left-handed geometry, stroke-by-stroke intensity and sure-footed agility on a slippery surface, and he has done it well enough in Monte Carlo to win the tournament six consecutive times. His only loss in the tiny principality came in his first appearance in 2003 at age 16, when Guillermo Coria — no slouch on what the French call “terre battue” — beat him in the third round.

Above all, Nadal has lost just once in his six appearances at the French Open. That lone defeat, the only truly significant clay-court setback of his career, came in the fourth round in 2009, when Nadal’s fragile knees were in nowhere near the same state of grace as Robin Soderling’s resounding ground strokes.

Nadal did his determined best to compensate for that setback last season: laying the base for his return to No. 1 by going 22-0 on clay and sweeping through Monte Carlo, Rome, Madrid and Paris. He plans to tackle those tournaments plus an extra one this year, returning to Barcelona next week. Meanwhile, the man who threatens Nadal’s No. 1 ranking, the Serbian Novak Djokovic, will take a break to rest his knees and spirit after winning his first 24 matches of the season, all on hard courts, and defeating Nadal in the finals of Indian Wells and Miami.

Despite living and training in Monte Carlo, Djokovic’s only scheduled appearance there this week is at the annual player talent show on Wednesday night. It is a big hint of newfound restraint from a young man with an appetite for life and paydays who has overplayed in the past, and Djokovic’s new approach could be another ominous sign for Nadal and Roger Federer, who has now slipped to No. 3 after losing to Djokovic three times this year.

Nadal predicted earlier this week that Djokovic, who has many fewer points to defend this spring, would rise to No. 1 sometime in May. The Serb does not plan to play again until the Belgrade tournament that he and his family own and operate on the banks of the Danube. If all goes according to the revised plan, he will arrive at the French Open in May having played just seven tournaments this year. That would be two fewer than the nine events — Davis Cup included — that he had played at the same stage last year, and five fewer than the dozen he had played in 2009.

Freshness seems a necessity in order to counter the relentless Nadal on clay.

“I’m not sure Rafa will win every match this year, and I’m not sure he’ll win 0 and 1 in the final of Monte Carlo like last year,” said Patrick McEnroe, the network television commentator and head of player development for the U.S. Tennis Association. “But it’s hard to imagine anyone really going toe to toe with him if he’s 100 percent healthy on the clay.”

But McEnroe thinks Djokovic can make a push, and, like many, he is intrigued by how Federer might fare as he attempts to remain relevant at the top of the game that he long dominated. “I know last year Roger went out at the French Open, but it seems like he’s almost more comfortable on clay now because he has more time,” McEnroe said. “I think of the three, this clay-court season is most important for Federer, to be honest.”

Inspired by the leading men, McEnroe is in the midst of re-emphasizing clay to American youngsters. He is convinced that the level of commitment, variety and creativity required to win points on clay is essential to developing talent. He also believes that the more forgiving surface is also healthier for young players. He was instrumental in the recent decision to shift the Orange Bowl junior tournament back to clay.

“We’re not putting more kids on clay so we can do better at the French Open,” he said. “I mean, we’d like to do better at the French, don’t get me wrong, but we’re doing this so that we have better tennis players, period.”

The clay-court circuit, once a world and pecking order apart, is no longer so distinct. Since the rise of Federer and then Nadal, the best clay-court players in the world have also been the best players in the world. Djokovic, Soderling, Tomas Berdych, David Ferrer and Stan Wawrinka have all done well on clay and elsewhere, although there are still anomalies like Andy Murray and Andy Roddick, who have been comparatively less successful on clay.

The gradations are subtle in the women’s game, too. Top players whose career winning percentages on clay are appreciably better than their overall percentages include Vera Zvonareva, Jelena Jankovic and the former French Open champions Francesca Schiavone, Ana Ivanovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova. Top players whose career winning percentages on clay are worse include the current No. 1 player in the world, Caroline Wozniacki, as well as Kim Clijsters, Serena and Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova, although Sharapova surprisingly has the best winning percentage on clay (78.6 percent) of anyone in the top 100. Not bad for a slugger who grew up on Florida hard courts and who once compared her movement on clay to a “cow on ice.”

At least Sharapova can still move on clay. Clijsters, the reigning U.S. Open and Australian Open champion, is on crutches at the moment after injuring her right ankle during a wedding celebration earlier this month. It was another freakish blow to the women’s game, which is already having to do without Serena Williams, who has not played since cutting her foot last July before an exhibition match against Clijsters.

Now they both are likely to miss the French Open, which would only focus more attention on Nadal and his chase pack.

Obtained by: nytimes